For if our cause was unjust, we couldn't bring this funk to you - Grooveallegiance
The sprawling Parliament/Funkadelic CD reissue program is at last complete. These four albums complete the catalog of the best band of the 1970's and one of the biggest influences on contemporary Black music. Funkadelic was the "rock" half of P-Funk, de-emphasizing the horns, keyboards and kiddie rhythms of Parliament in favor of metallic guitars, a more forceful backbeat and a more adult, political lyrical outlook. This side is cleanest on Hardcore Jollies, the hardest rocking album by a band that put the lie to the "Blacks can't rock" myth when Vernon Reid was a toddler.
With One Nation Under A Groove, band leader George Clinton began merging the sound of Funkadelic with that of Parliament. The synthesis resulted in some of the most explosive dance music of a decade that revisionist history now tells us produced some pretty damn great dance music. With this album, P-Funk conquered the universe, becoming America's dominant Black band. The lyrics have to be heard to be believed, the first since Sly Stone's to convey pointed political messages in the context of a party album.
After this, Uncle Jam Wants You couldn't help being something of a disappointment, but it does have the P-Funk magnum opus, "Not Just Knee Deep," a fifteen-minute soul symphony that is the source of countless hiphop sample.
The Electric Spanking of War Babies, the last album Clinton recorded under the Funkadelic moniker, went nowhere chartwise, but it's the strangest, funniest and maybe best album Funkadelic released. Featuring the usual slash-and-burn guitars and fat-bottomed grooves, there's also a Sly Stone guest appearance and the first fusion of funk and reggae. Every idea Prince ever had is somewhere on this album. (Pat Anders)